Summary: Need a better attitude... look no further than Jesus!

My attitude is a window to my heart. Not necessarily my desired heart, but my true heart… depraved and self-serving as it is.

We all fight with our attitudes. The victories are many times hard fought and the defeats come more often than we would like. When we lose the battle very little good, if any, comes from it. We usually end up embarrassing ourselves and others while bruising our testimony.

I searched several dictionaries for an appropriate definition of attitude and here is a personal rendering of what I discovered.

Attitude is a complex mental state involving beliefs and feelings and values and dispositions to act in certain ways; often indicated by body posture and position.

In the end my bad attitude indicates, that I at that moment, I believe it’s “all about me.”

If you think about it there are many attitudes:

Positive Attitudes

Negative Attitudes

Attitudes of Indifference

Selfish Attitudes

Caring Attitudes

Carefree Attitudes

Responsible Attitudes

Irresponsible Attitudes

The list is long. So it’s rather impossible for us to look at each individual attitude. Rather, if we could find a scriptural example of the perfect attitude maybe we could gain some insight that would help us improve ours.

Now… when it comes to a perfect attitude there is only one place to turn… Jesus Christ exemplified the perfect attitude. His responses are flawless, His answers penetrating and dead accurate, His composure was unmatched, and His compassion without limits. That is where we must look… Because after all it’s all about Him… right?

Philippians 2:5-11 5Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: 6Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: 7But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: 8And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. 9Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: 10That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; 11And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

PRAYER

In verse 5 the Greek word for “mind” is phroneō, which has to do with one’s attitude. Paul tells the Philippians that they should have the same attitude that Jesus Christ had.

Now understand that the bar has not been lowered for us. We too must have the same attitude that Christ had. He demonstrated for us how to respond in such a way as to bring glory to our heavenly Father… which, by the way, was His main objective… 11And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

- When Jesus was tired, He kept going because He wanted to glorify the Father.

- When others mocked Him for centering His life around God’s word, He marched on because He wanted to glorify the Father.